During the Vietnam War, the United States military dropped
Herbicide Orange and Agent LNX, later known as Agent Orange, over Vietnamese
forests and rural land. The goal of these very destructive chemicals was to destroy
the guerrilla’s cover from aerial view. The after effects of the chemicals to the Vietnamese
in the surrounding areas were horrible. The New York
times articles explains that the Vietnamese government to trying to treat the victims
using a method that Scientologists are helping to support. Methods of
detoxification are taking vitamins, and the use of exercise
and sauna sessions to “sweat out” the dioxin. The downside to this great effort
is that many doctors don’t believe that detoxification would help the victims
at all; they say it is a wasted effort. There has yet to be any proven way to
cure Agent Orange dioxin victims.
This article shows us the many harmful and unnecessary
results that come of war. During war, most people do not stop to think about the
long term affects tactics might have on other human beings. Just to try and get
a better angle at the opposing side, the United States dropped a harmful
chemical that is still taking and ruining lives of Vietnamese to this day. In
the article, J. David Goodman notes that the Unites states has done noting to
support this trial for detoxification. It seems odd that the country who caused
such a horrible condition in the lives of many people, would not support an
effort to try and better their lives. In an article from the Huffington Post, a
Vietnamese man was quoted about his fears of the dioxin being passed on to future
generation in his family. “‘I hope my wife and I will fully recover completely
and will not suffer after-effects to pass on to my descendants,’ prospective
patient Nguyen Dai Sang.” It seems that more efforts are desperately needed in trying to find ways to improve the lives of not only the Agent Orange victims, but all people suffering of strange and unfamiliar exposure to chemicals.
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